Downtime (IB)

Starfox's Blades Hack

Between operations, your crew spends time at their liberty, attending to personal needs and side projects. These are called downtime activities. During a downtime phase, each PC has time for two downtime activities. When you’re at war (relation with another faction is at -3), each PC has time for only one. When resting away from your base, such as hiding out at some flophouse, you can only do one downtime action in any case. The same applies if you are roughing it out in the wild and have camping gear.

Downtime Actions

2: At peace operating from your base.

1: At war. Lodgings away from your base. Roughing it out with camping gear.

0: Roughing out without camping gear.

You may choose the same activity more than once. You can only attempt actions that you’re in a position to accomplish. If an activity is contingent on another action, resolve them in order.

A PC can make time for more than two activities, at a cost. Each additional activity from the list costs 1 Credit or 1 Reputation. This reflects the time and resulting resource drain while you're “off the clock” and not earning from a operation. When you complete a new operation, you reset and get two “free” activities again. During downtime, you can still go places, do things, make action rolls, gather information, talk with other characters, etc. Such casual activity do not count as downtime actions, but neither do they have as powerful effects.

Cohorts can perform one free downtime action each.

If you can leverage another faction in a better position than your own crew for a downtime action, add or subtract a number of dice equal to your Status with that group. If a faction dominates the area, you may have to consult them even if your Status in negative.

When you roll for a downtime activity, you may spend Credit after the roll to improving the level of success by one step: Fumble → Failure → Opposed success → Success → Critical.

GM Tip: If a player can’t decide which downtime activity to pick, offer them a long-term project idea. You know what the player is interested in and what they like. Suggest a project that will head in a fun direction for them. “Remember how you heard of the need to unionize the dockworkers? Do you want to work on that? Okay, start a long-term project — six segments — called 'Meet the dockworkers' — this will get you in touch with them and build some trust”

Downtime Actions

In many cases, the result of a downtime action is standardized, based on the result of you Action roll. Tier applies to the result of actions that result in Quality or other reading of Tier, Ticks is the number of filds you fill in a clock for a Long-Term Action. A fumble has consequences (which can be resisted), it may endanger the action or project which can be solved with an Operation or has some other Risky consequence.

Die result	Tiers	Ticks
1	Fumble	Fumble
2–3	-1	1
4–5	+/- 0	2
6	+1	3
66	+2	5

Acquire Asset

Gain temporary use of an asset:

• One special item or set of common items, enough for a team of your Tier scale.
• A cohort, an expert or team hired for a short time.
• A vehicle or set of vehicles for the crew.
• A service. Transport from a smuggler or driver, use of a warehouse for temporary storage, legal representation, etc.

“Temporary use” constitutes one significant period of usage that makes sense for the asset — typically the duration of one operation. An asset may also be acquired for “standby” use in the future. You might hire a team to guard your base, for example, and they’ll stick around until after the first serious battle.

To acquire the asset, Consort is the typical action to use, the GM can allow others . The result indicates the Quality of the asset you get, using the crew's Tier as the base: 1-3: Tier -1, 4/5: Tier, 6: Tier +1, critical: Tier +2. The GM may set a minimum quality level that must be achieved to acquire a particular asset. For example, if you want to get a set of uniforms of a Tier IV group, you’d need to acquire a Tier IV asset. A lower result adds the Unreliable tag. Since you can spend Credit to get an extra downtime activity, you can essentially “rent” an asset indefinitely. Spend a Credit during downtime for the activity, then roll Tier to see what quality it is right now.

Confirm Contact

You turn a non-player character you got along with during a recent operation into a contact. If the result is in doubt, you may have to make a roll (typically Command, Sway, or an action appropriate to the contact, such as Tinker for a craftsman or Study for a scholar). Depending on the result, you can turn someone of increasing tiers into a contact. This makes them friendly to you and willing to give you the support a contact gives, but they may still betray you at some point if the GM says so.

1: Gain an enemy instead

2-3: Lower than your Tier.

4-5: Equal Tier.

6: 1 Tier higher

Critical: Any Tier.

Many contacts will lack a Tier, for such anything except a fumble succeeds. You can spend Credit normally to improve this result.

Long-term Project

When you work on a long-term project (either a brand new one, or an already existing one), describe what your character does to advance the project clock, and roll one of your actions. Mark segments on the clock according to your result: 1-3: one segment, 4/5: two segments, 6: three segments, critical: five segments. A long-term project can cover a wide variety of activities, like designing a new item, investigating a mystery, establishing someone’s trust, courting a new friend or contact, changing your character's vice, and so on. Based on the goal of the project, the GM will tell you the clock(s) to create and suggest a method by which you might make progress.

The GM might present you with a series of shorter projects instead of one very long project. This creates decision points where you gain some of the benefits of your projects and have to decide how to proceed. For example , in order to work on a project, you might first have to achieve the means to pursue it — which can be a project in itself. For example, you might want to make friends with a member of the City Council, but you have no connection to them. You could first work on a project to Consort in their circles so you have the opportunity to meet one of them. Once that’s accomplished, you could start a new project to form a friendly relationship, or the GM may present you with a juicy distraction; to steal the party fund.

There is a list of suggested Long-Term Projects below.

Cohort Recovery

At the start of downtime each cohort immediately recovers any armor it may have, and then automatically heals one wound box. This represents a mix of recruiting and recovery. You can spend a downtime action to heal all damage a cohort has taken. If you lack any ability that improves another's recovery checks , you must spend one Credit doing this.

Gather Information

Gathering information as a downtime action is the same but more effective than more effective than Gather Information in free play or on an operation, improving the level of success by one step: Fumble → Failure → Opposed success → Success → Critical.

Indulge Avocation

Pursue your hobby or leasure activity to to relieve stress. See Indulgence for details.

Reduce Friction

Say what your character does to reduce the Friction level of the crew and make an action roll. Maybe you Consort with your friend in the police and she arranges for a few incriminating reports to disappear. Or maybe you Rig to repair your old pile of junk of a ship. Reduce Friction according to the result:

1: Crisis.

2/3: One Friction.

4/5: Two Friction.

6: Three Friction.

Critical: Five Friction.

Friction can take many forms. Almost any action can be used as long as you present any kind of excuse for how it increases readiness.

Train

When you spend time in training, mark 1 xp on the xp track for an attribute or playbook advancement. You need an external trainer or the appropriate crew Training upgrade unlocked to do this. You can train only once per downtime.

Long-Term Projects

Here are example long-term projects to spend downtime.

Add Upgrade

Adding an upgrade to your base is a ten-tick clock.

Calibrate Item

Improve the Quality of an item in a character's Inventory. This upgrade is permanent: whenever they take take this item with Load, it has the improved Quality. Calibration reflects both finding the exact make that fits you and mastering its nuances. This modifies a Design and they can print any number of items, but they are calibrated only for the owner.

Advancing Quality requires a project clock: 4 ticks to raise an item from ±0 to +1, and 6 ticks to raise it from +1 to +2, the maximum value.

This stacks with the Praxic's Tailoring Ability.

Crew Xp

You can work on developing the capabilities of your crew, earning crew Xp. This is a four-tick clock that uses Command or any action typical of what your crew does. On completion your crew gains one point of Xp.

Earn Credit

Working to earn Credit for your crew is usually a 4-tick-clock to earn 1 Credit for the crew. You are engaging in the typical activities of your crew, whatever that is, and can use appropriate actions.

Earn Reputation

You can advance your crew by earning reputation. A four-tick-clock gives your crew one point of reputation. This uses an action appropriate for what the group does, and in most cases Command, Consort, and Sway also work.

Get License

A License is essential in civilized space. Its Quality is important as it decides if authorities will accept your license.

There are two kinds of licenses — personal and vehicle — and each comes in two levels: possession and operate.

• Possession license: The basic credential. Creating one is a long-term project clock with 6 ticks.
• Operate license: The active-use credential. You must hold a possession license first. Creating one is a project clock with 12 ticks.

You may use Calibrate Item to improve the Quality of a license. These clocks require four times the usual ticks. All your licenses benefit — they always share the same Quality.

If you maintain a good relationship with a polity whose Tier matches the Quality of your license, it counts as a legitimate license. Otherwise it is black-market, though functionally identical unless a serious investigation attempts to verify it with your supposed issuing polity.

Heal

When you heal, you seek treatment and heal your harm. This is best done in a hospital of your base's Medical section if you have one.

The basic healing roll with no treatment in zero: roll 2d and take the worst. Naturally you will want to avoid this.

• A hospital or Medical section on a base adds dice equal to its Tier.
• A Philosopher's Medicine ability adds dice equal to their Study.
• A Praxic's Surgeon ability adds dice equal to their Rig.

Mark a number of segments on your healing 4-tick clock. When you fill your healing clock, reduce each instance of harm on your sheet by one level, then clear the clock. If you have more segments to mark, ticks “roll over.”

Cross has two injuries: a level 3 “Shattered Right Leg” and level 1 “Battered.” During downtime in the wild, he gets treatment from Quellyn, a contact of the crew's Lancer. Quellyn is a competent healer and the team is Tier 2, so the GM says quality 2 makes sense. The player rolls 2d to recover and gets a 6: three segments on the healing clock. He decides to spend 1 Credit to improve the result to a critical to get five segments instead. Four segments fill the clock — all of Cross's harm is reduced by one level, then he clears the clock and marks one more segment. His level 3 harm “Shattered Right Leg” is reduced to level 2 harm. His level 1 harm “Battered” is reduced to zero and goes away. Cross is left with one injury on his sheet: level 2 “Broken Leg.”

Note that it's the recovering character that takes the recovery action. Healing someone else does not cost a downtime activity for the healer. Whenever you suffer new harm, clear any ticks on your healing clock.

Investigation

Some questions are too complex to answer with a Gather Information downtime action. For instance, you might want to map a network of contraband smuggling routes. In these cases, the GM will tell you to start a long-term project that you work on during downtime.

You track the investigation project using a progress clock. Once the clock is filled, you have the evidence you need to ask several questions about the subject of your investigation beyond what Gather Information allows.

On the last operation, Ti pursued a smuggler ship that seemed to disappear into empty space. How is this possible? This is beyond the scope of a simple gather information roll, so Ti starts a long-term project to investigate this mystery. The GM says it will be an 8-segment clock. Ti spends a downtime activity researching, looking for any clues. The player rolls Ti's Study and gets a 4: two segments of progress on the clock.

Language Study

Helpful Condition	Clock Reduction
You know a language that shares a root language	–1 clock
You know a language in the same language family	–1 clock
Circle of conversation	–1 clock

You may learn new languages as a series of long-term projects. Each study round fills a 4-tick clock. Common Actions for this project include Consort, Study, and Sway.

You normally need to complete 4 clocks to learn a new language representing linguistic distance and cognitive adaptation. Each helpful condition below reduces that number by one (to a minimum of 1 clock):

A Circle of conversation is a group sufficient for scale at your Tier (p 221) or living among a population of native speakers.

Vanity Projects

Sometimes characters pursue personal goals that are meaningful to them but seem to have no direct mechanical effect. These are Vanity Projects — expressions of identity, ambition, reputation, or personal fulfillment rather than optimization. Examples include art projects, holding parties, or refining a breed of plant.

A Vanity Project can usually be framed as a variation of an existing long-term project (such as Add Upgrade, Crew XP, Earn Credit, or Earn Reputation). Use the clock of the closest equivalent project, then add +2 ticks to reflect that the effort prioritizes personal meaning over efficiency. Fulfilling the clock gives personal satisfaction, and also has the reward of the chosen project type.

Indulgence

Heroes live tense and exciting lives, repeatedly doing remarkable and unlikely things. But this comes at a cost. A hero's life is one of constant stress. The way to unload this burden is to indulge in a leisure activity. Indulgence provides stress relief but may also cause spillover — consequences, good or bad, that arise when indulgence bleeds into the rest of your life.

You are always assumed to be practicing your indulgence, but you give it extra time and attention when you take the Indulge downtime action.

Indulgencies

Suggested indulgencies and typical spillover. Indulgencies can be hobbies, habits, or the avocations favored among Jovians.

1. Debauchery Classic vices such as drugs, drink, gambling, brawling, or prostitution, often in combination. Spillover includes an operation under the influence, Harm, entanglement, cost, or criminal trouble.
2. Devotion Aligning with a group, either political or spiritual. Spillover includes disillusionment, radicalization, responsibility, or patronage.
3. Luxury Fine living, dining, and fashion. Spillover includes envy, expectations, impractical dress, notoriety, cost, or queasiness.
4. Nature Gardening, hiking, artisanal farming, and other ways to enjoy nature, usually on a habitat's garden deck. Spillover can include finding a pet, affliction, affectation, or responsibilities.
5. Performance Practice and possibly compete in one or more games, creative arts, performance arts, or sports. Spillover includes scheduling, fame, strain, idolization, or rivalries.
6. Relationships Family or social groups such as community work or dating. Spillover can include romance, deepened bonds (dating → relationship → marriage → family), awkward expectations, jealousy, obligation, or estrangement.

Indulging

When you indulge, you clear some stress from your character’s stress track. Say how your character indulges. This indulgence takes time, so it can only be done when the crew has downtime. Having a steady source of this indulgence, usually a contact, Assists your stress relief with +1d.

You roll to find out how much stress relief your character receives. An indulgence roll is like a resistance roll in reverse — rather than gaining stress levels, you clear stress levels. The effectiveness of your indulgence depends upon your character’s worst attribute rating. It’s their weakest quality (Insight, Prowess, or Resolve) that needs the most stress relief. Make an attribute roll using your character’s lowest attribute rating (if there’s a tie, that’s fine — simply use that rating). Clear stress equal to the highest die result.

Spillover

Spillover occurs when an indulgence works too well. When you Indulge and clear more Stress than you have marked, you trigger Spillover. Stress is fully cleared, but the excess generates a complication.

These can be resisted, but GMs should generally avoid and reconsider effects the player feels they need to resist. The best spillover effects take player imput.

Spillover consequences should:

• Affect the next Score or the situation leading into it.
• Represent attention, obligation, exposure, or entanglement.
• Never make the player uncomfortable or morally queasy.

See Indulgencies above for suggested consequences of spillover. Below are examples that can apply to any indulgence.

• Drift — You end up delayed, displaced, or committed elsewhere at the start of the next Score.
• Entanglement — Things work too well. Gain Friction or an unwanted contact, enemy, obligation, or follower.
• Expectation — Someone now relies on you. Refusing later will cause Friction.
• Exposure — You were noticed. A faction, authority, or rival clocks your habits or location.
• Resource Drain — The indulgence consumed more than time. Lose Credit, access, or temporary use of an Asset.
• Saturation — This indulgence no longer satisfies you; find something else, at least for a time.

The GM should frame Spillover as a natural extension of success, not a punishment.

Trauma

When Stress is pushed too far or ignored, it hardens into Trauma — lasting harm to a character’s mind, body, or sense of self. Trauma represents the permanent cost of stress: frayed nerves, broken habits, compulsions, scars, or altered outlooks on life.

Trauma is cumulative. It does not fade on its own and is rarely removed except through major change: withdrawal from danger, long-term recovery, profound personal breakthroughs, or life-altering events that force a character to rebuild who they are.

Trauma can be physical or mental, and can represent tear and wear outside the normal system or Harm or cause permanent, incureable harm. More commonly it manifests as some pshychological oddity; excess or lack of emotion, attachment, or a specific idea or thing.

Friction and Entropy

Friction is what, more or less, distinguishes real war from war on paper.

— Carl von Clausewitz, On War (1832), abridged translation

Friction represents the slow accumulation of strain on your crew — tension in the crew, wear, overreach, debts, and attention from rivals or bureaucrats. Entropy marks the long-term decay that results when you fail to shed that strain. Together they track the health and stability of your operation.

Friction

Every operation leaves residue: overextended crews, mechanical wear, social backlash, and bureaucratic drag. This is Friction.

At significant events in an operation and the end of each Operation, the GM adds Friction to the crew based on how turbulent, costly, or conspicuous the operation was. Friction is not only about reputation — it measures stress on the entire machine.

Minor operation (+1 Friction)

Quiet job, routine delivery, minimal risk or exposure.

Noticeable operation (+2 Friction)

Some danger or damage; moderate visibility; the job drew attention from interested parties.

Major operation (+4 Friction)

High stakes, multiple fronts, visible success or disaster. People noticed, systems strained.

Catastrophic operation (+6 Friction)

Severe collateral, political fallout, or mechanical exhaustion. Someone will have to answer for this.

Add Friction if

+1 Friction for each NPC who died up to +3.

+1 Friction for using Conspicious items or Restricted/Military item used with a license.

+2 Friction for using Restricted item without a license.

+4 Friction for using Military item without a license.

Friction has an upper limit of 9. When friction reaches 10 Friction reverts to zero, and Entropy increases by one. If this happens during an Operation, make an immediate Friction roll before reducing Friction. Crews may spend Downtime actions to Reduce Friction by downtime actions involving maintenance, rest, diplomacy, or repair.

Entropy

When Friction lingers, it solidifies into Entropy — permanent decay of systems, relationships, or efficiency. Entropy represents the lasting cost of friction: corroded trust, exhausted crew, or bureaucratic rot. Entropy is cumulative. It rarely decreases except through major restructuring: retiring debts, moving bases, rebuilding infrastructure, or completing long-term projects.

Spending Friction in Play

The GM may optionally “burn” Friction points during an Operation to introduce complications or setbacks reflecting accumulated strain. Each point spent imposes one unexpected obstacle, equipment flaw, or social demand and reduces the current Friction score by one or more points. 1 point is similar to an Annoyance from the Friction Events Table, a small, immediate problem. 2 point results are similar to an Impairing result from the Friction Events Table, a serious setback. 4 point results are similar to a Mission Critical result from the Friction Events Table, often ending an operation.

Friction Events

After Downtime concludes, the GM makes a Friction Roll to see how residual strain manifests.

Roll a number of dice equal to your current 'Friction + Entropy. If this is less than your Tier, roll Tier instead. Read the highest die:

1 — Boon. Unexpected advantage, easy passage, or goodwill.

2–3 — Neutral. Routine wear; no event.

4–5 — Annoyance. Minor setback; a delay, rumor, or small failure.

6 — Impairing. Significant malfunction or social complication.

66 — Mission Critical. Major development or system failure that shapes the next Operation.

Cross-reference the result with the operation type (Assault, Deception, Science, Social, Stealth, Transport) on the Friction Events Table.

Friction events are not punishment — they are texture. They describe how stress and wear shape the next operation.

Friction Events Table

Read the Friction Roll and apply the result based on your an operation type. The GM should usually select usually current type of operation, but sometimes the operation before where you picked up the friction, or some other type that fits the situation, might be more appropriate.

Result	Assault	Deception	Science	Social	Stealth	Transport
1 – Boon	Allies offer each of the crew one free Load of items.	Your identities coincide with logs.	Expert calibration: +1d on Gather Information using sensors.	An ally shows up at the event.	A distraction; extend a stealth clock by 2 ticks.	Good launch window; +1 Effect on first travel roll.
2/3 – Neutral	Sight is unusually clear.	An unexpected bystander.	Logs are rich on story.	A contact shows up at the event.	Focus on color, heat, noise, radio, touch, or scent.	Heavy traffic slows the lanes down.
4/5 – Annoyance	Ammo low, all auto-fire becomes Charged.	An ID or clearance code expires mid-operation.	Poor calibration, sensors are Unreliable.	One of the PCs' enemies are at the event, needs to be distracted.	The comms you planned to use turn out to be Unreliable.	Navigation data is old and Unreliable.
6 – Impairing	Ammo low, all weapon fire Charged.	One key disguise or narrative thread exposed; go to plan B.	Contamination; sensors are Volatile with false data.	One of the PCs' enemies and a team interveines.	Planned access blocked; go to plan B.	Law/customs/pirates; takes time, Credits.
66 – Mission Critical	Armor and vehicles become unreliable.	Rival intelligence preempts your scheme.	Breach — survive and salvage.	Scandal; protests or riots.	Enemies and a team on the same operation.	Catastrophic failure strands or isolates you.